Morning journal and courier., 1887-06-27
THE BACCALAUREATE

Monday, june 81, 1857.
THE BACCALAUREATE
Delivered Yesterday Morning. June
26tE, At Batten Chapel BY President
Timothy Dwight.
John xiv, 81: "Arise, let US 60 hence"
These words are found at the end of the rec
ord of that most deeply interesting discourse
of Jesus addressed to his disciples on the
last evening of his life, which is presented to
us in the fourteenth chapter of Johns Cos
pei. In our English versions they stand by
themselves as an independent sentence, and
are simply a summons to the company to
join him in leaving the room where they had
been taking their sacred meal and conversing
with each other. But according to the view
of the recent writer the Interpretation of
the New Testament, who as I cannot but be-
lieve, is correct in his explanation of the
passage, they form the principal clause, to
which the former part of the verse is subor-
dinate as expressing purpose. There is thus
| certain contrast between this verse and that
4 which precedes it; and what Jesus said and
| meant to say as he closed the conversation
| and discourse was this: I will not continue
| to speak with you longer as I have been
| speaking, for the hostile element is now com
| ing in on us. This is the time for action.
| In order that the world may know that love
| the father, and, as the father gave ME COM
1 mandment, so do-to this end, arise, let US
/ 60 hence.
Viewed in this light, the words are not, as
/ they are according to the other explanation,
4 an abrupt sentence, followed apparently by
no corresponding act, for the company does
not seem to have left the room until the time
indicated at the beginning of the eighteenth
chapter. But they are words full OF mean
ing as connected with the circumstances and
the hour; words which had their first and
special application to Jesus himself and
what was awaiting him in the later hours of
that night and on the next following day,
hut which must nevertheless, as they remem-
bered them afterward, have had deep signi
ficance for the disciples also as bearing upon
their own life and work in connection with
the great crisis through which theywere pass
ing. The disciples may well have said to one
another, when the wonderful events which
occurred in the immediate future had taken
place, what significance, which we did not
appreciate at the time, there was in those
ing of our last meeting with
him: Arise, let us go hence.
They formed the dividing point between the
past and the future for us, as well for
himself. They bore with them the announce
ment that the time of preparation had reach
ed its ending and that the time for action
had arrived. They seemed, indeed, to con-
tain within themselves only a bidding to
leave one place for another on given day;
but they actually contained a summons to
thought of the future, and to the work and
duty of "a lifetime. And SO these disciples
may have gone forward in their subsequent
career with these words as a motto and in
SEPARATION for their lives.
Looking at them thus in this truest light,
and according to what may seem to be the
right Interpretation of the sentence, I have
chosen these words the starting point for
the suggestions which may be appropriate to
the hour before US. The company of nearly
one hundred and fifty men, strong in the
vigor of youth and in their hopes of the flu
ture, who have met together in this house
this morning to listen to last
word of counsel and of friendship,
are at most important turning-point in their
lives. The period of preparation, of depend
ence on others, of the careless joyousness of
younger days is ending. The time for &C.
ton, for responsibility, for achievement, for
the work and results of life draws near. The
voice which speaks to them as if from one
manly soul among all the rest says at this
hour: Arise, let US 60 hence. But the
meaning of the voice is not merely: Let US
leave this pleasant home of the past years to
go elsewhere. 1t is far more than this.
The voice is a summons and an inspiration
and it bids them look forward to what is be-
fore them.
And what is before them? The same
things-not in details, indeed, but in the es-
sentials of life, provided they live rightly
to which that other company were pointed
common work and duty, real success, a
true and permanent happiness.
When we speak of a common work and
duty to body of young men at the close of
| their university career at the present day we
| cannot of course refer to their undertaking
/ to serve the world in one particular line. No
such thing would be desirable or, as we
might say, even possible. 1t was possible
for the little company of friends and disci-
| Piles in the early days, but we in another
| age and in far greater numbers. Yet there
| is a uniting element in the working of all
| right-minded educated men, and the edu-
Gated class are, in a most important sense,
one. I cannot but think, also, that when
men have been educated under the influences
of common traditions and the inheritance of
a common spirit, as in university whose
history reaches back for nearly two hundred
years as ours does. there is and must be
| peculiar oneness in their life work in what
ever may be its individuality or where
ever it may be carried forward.
Notwithstanding the differences which
belong to our personal characteristics
| and mental powers, we go forth from our
common education with a likeness to
other, and because of it our work for the
| world is other than it might have been. As
we say to each other therefore, Arise, let us
go hence, the summons to duty is one that
comes to ourselves and bids us do our work
| for the worlds well being according to the
/ noblest principles and impulses which we
have ourselves received.
What is the bearing of these principles
and impulses upon the needs of the timei
It is certainly critical period in the expe-
rience of the world, and especially of our
| own nation, st which the young men of
| these passing years are entering upon their
| lifes work. In material things our people
| are moving, as If in an hour, out of the
| limitations and moderation Of the past into
| all the resources and wealth of the most
/ luxurious nations. The temptation to get
| money and to spend it, to view it as the
| means of all good and the end of all de-
sire, to make what it brings the essential
thing in the idea of earthly happiness, to
subordinate for its sake the inward life to the
outward, is becoming stronger and seemingly
more irresistible continually. The demorali-
zing of character which follows the yielding
to this temptation is more and more clearly
manifesting itself. Those who stand nearest
to the centers of the public living in this re-
gard may well be alarmed for the future, and
the most thoughtful among them are SO Of
tentimes, as we know. Closely bordering upon
this sudden and wonderful increase of wealth
and the desire there has come upon US what
threatens to be a serious and prolonged con-
fict between classes in society and the in
road of theories of the State which would
overthrow what has been founded upon the
thought and wisdom of ages. And no less
clearly bordering upon it doubt and CUES
tioning of the most dangerous order are
pressing in upon US. The absorption of the
mind and heart in material things is extin-
gushing in the soul the thoughts of the
spiritual and of that which lays hold upon
the inmost self and reaches out into the i'm
mortal future. The best and highest part of
man is forgotten. The danger of the hour is
that even the educated classes will lose out
of themselves the moss ennobling element of
life and will satisfy themselves with know
ing the seen and not knowing the unseen.
That these are among the evils and tenden-
cies of the time no thoughtful observer will
question. That the bearing Of the best
teachings and noblest impulses of this place
upon these evils is to resist them, L believe
that those who breathe the atmosphere We
are are fully convinced. And SO when the
summons to those who have had their educa-
ton here is to go hence, it is the summons
to coafict with the power of the world,
which in these and similar ways opposed the
true righteousness to-day as truly as it was